Stories of Boat Related Mishaps and Experiences | Soundings Online Column

The maintenance mantra: 'It's always something'

Those of us with older boats own the phrase "It's always something." I have used it to explain dark shadows under my eyes and additional furrows in my already furrowed brow. But hey, it's a 50-year-old sailboat, and I'm a cranky old(er) sailor. But whatever problems "my beloved" gives, without her I would be lost. She has become part of my life during the last 25 years, and the challenges she puts forth are paid back many times over in the pleasure, purpose and satisfaction she returns.

Woodwind sail cruises are a family affair

The Woodwind sisters strut their stuff on the Chesapeake The first Scarano-built schooner named Woodwind arrived in Annapolis as a dude daysailer almost 20 years ago, followed by an identical twin sister (Woodwind II) in 1997. These graceful epoxy-covered wooden vessels with modern underbodies from the Scarano yard in Albany, N.Y., have since become fixtures on the Chesapeake. Sister schooners also work touristy ports from Key West to New England.

Season's first cruise had everything but a breeze

I follow one self-imposed “rule” in my singularly unimportant recreational life when it comes to the first cruise of the season, usually to the St. Michaels area or Oxford on Maryland’s middle Eastern Shore. It says an outbound cruise must begin under sail, and if the wind fails after two hours of trying to sail I’ll give it up to avoid hours of motoring and stay home waiting for a local breeze.

The three Rs of saving a manhandled Morgan

Jack Sherwood RRR — rescue, resurrect and restore — is a term that boatbuilder Charley Morgan uses when he’s referring to rehabs of down-and-out Morgan sailboats. The sturdy, traditional vessels, which he designed and built at his Morgan Yacht Corp. in Florida in the 1960s and ’70s, still lure sailors looking for boatyard bargains (sometimes free) to rejuvenate and fulfill illusory sailing dreams.

New life springs from an old boatyard

THE SARLES GANG: (Front row, from left) Ed 'Sandman' Parker, Tom Weaver and Knothead, Deb Smith, Lawrence 'Shorty' Franklin; (back row, from left) Dave Hannam, 'Big Steve' Halbrook, Mike Lohr, 'Mighty Joe' Young. My idea of a good time last winter was working on my older sailboat at her slip. But when it got too cold for that I'd pack up and head over to Sarles Boatyard & Marina in the Eastport section of Annapolis, just around the corner from my boat. I'd warm up at the old pot belly wood stove, inhaling the aroma of freshly sawn wood, and look for Dave Hannam.

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Jack Sherwood, Writer-at-Large

Jack has been cruising Chesapeake Bay and writing about the region for more than 25 years. His critically acclaimed book, "Maryland's Vanishing Lives," was published by Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University Press and is now in its second printing. Before joining Soundings, Jack was a feature writer at the Washington (D.C.) Star for nearly 20 years and a senior editor at Chesapeake Bay magazine from 1995 to 1998. His monthly Bay Tripper column focuses on the Chesapeake.

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